Goodnight
by Candlefly
Summary: The Doctor reflects on a small ritual that he and his companion Rose have in their friendship. When she is exhausted from one of their missions of mercy, he tries to give her rest and sees again how comforting a ritual can be.


Goodnight

Traveling with Rose, the Doctor came to measure the time for her not precisely by Earth days, but rather by Rose's own sleeping cycle.

A sleeping cycle that he had to monitor himself, usually, since Rose's perception of her personal minutes and hours was muddled at best, and almost nonexistent at worst, particularly since outside of the TARDIS the "days" and "nights" for her could get quite jumbled up. They could spend an early morning getting warm dill rolls in late twentieth century Canada, and thirty-five minutes later be on planet Ragnorak testing their blending-in skills at a midnight dinner party to which they had most certainly not been invited.

And Rose, being as young as she was, did not always notice that it was past her body's time to rest until she was nearly exhausted. There was something to be said for youthful energy, but once it was gone it could leave even the lustiest girl totally bereft. Not to mention slow-minded, sluggish, and grouchy.

So it was easier to simply be aware of her waking hours, note when she had been awake for sixteen hours at least, and then send her off to bed.

When she first began traveling with him he'd simply say, "All right, you've been up for about eighteen hours. That's enough, off to bed with you." She'd take note of herself and realize she was indeed in need of rest, and bounce off to settle herself in.

But soon a ritual came of it. Not entirely surprising, since humans did like their little habits and customs, but out of all the companions that the Doctor ever had, and the individual bonds he might have shared with them, the bedtime ritual between himself and Rose was probably the sweetest and most precious that he had ever known. A small thing, quiet and simple, and not entirely different from anything anyone else did to say goodnight to someone else. But it was Rose, and even a small meaning could have deep, warm layers of feeling to it.

Always so simple. Doctor would chirp, "Bedtime!" to her, and she'd grin and vanish for a short while. She would return in clean nightclothes and a heavy terrycloth dressing gown with damp hair and smelling sweetly of the practical soaps he had lying around like lemon grass or his very, very favorite, rose petal-scented. She would say "G'night," and he would echo with, "Night-night," and they would hug. A tight, lingering, homely hug where he would lift her slightly off her feet. Setting her down again, he would bend his head slightly to receive a goodnight kiss on his forehead, and then she'd be off to her room.

Maybe it bordered on domestic. Maybe he was coming to need the comfort a little too much, so that it would be that much more painful one day when Rose was gone and he had to continue on without her. The thought of never knowing another goodnight with her arms and face still warm from her bathwater and the little kiss on his forehead scented lightly with Venusian spearmint would put an instant lump in his throat, too big for him to speak around.

But he just couldn't seem to care anymore. Rose was his best mate, and it was silly to make saying goodnight into something complicated.

Besides, he loved it. Saying goodnight was good. Knowing the comfort was good. His best friend Rose was good. Rose-scented soap was good. A tiny routine amongst the chaos of their lives was good. He would keep telling her it was bedtime, and she would keep using the rose-scented soap. All good.

Still, routines were easily interrupted, and so was Rose's sleeping cycle. Even as he tried to keep it so she could sleep on the regular, sometimes it wasn't practical. Things came up, there were crimes to be solved and evil plots to foil and cities, worlds, galaxies or even the entire universe at times to save.

Today it had been a city that needed saving, but sometimes, just sometimes, the struggle even for lives within a single city was no less than if it had been the whole universe.

The struggle was over, mostly, and the Doctor watched how Rose was doing out of the corner of his eye. By his count, she had not slept in fifty-two hours, and it showed heavily in her drooping posture and slumped shoulders. She leaned against a hard brick wall, resting her weary eyes. Her hair was dull with sweat and her makeup was smeared down her face, and she didn't have the energy or the concentration to care that she was a mess.

When this particular adventure had first begun, they had simply been following the time winds, letting themselves randomly end up where they would, and wound up in the locked-down slums of a world the Doctor had still not identified. Crumbling buildings against broken streets and chunks of what was left of the concrete sidewalk pretty much summed up the scenery. Plates that held upper cities blocked out the sun and rain and wind from the slums. People cowered in terror, keeping away from each other in fear of a plague. A mutated, airborne virus, which was the reason the slums were knocked down. With a little fast, brilliant thinking and the help of a handful of medical personnel who cared enough to come from the upper cities and risk infection to help the unfortunate ones below, a cure had been found and had been released into the masses in the form of mist provided by the little artificial weather gadget the Doctor had rigged up to spread the cure and eliminate the virus in the air.

Spectacular work, if he did say so himself.

But to make a very, very bad situation much, much worse some of the people who had been desperate to try to get to the upper cities, or even just to share their fate with the cruel upper classes who had so callously abandoned them to disease and death had collapsed part of the first plate. A lot of people died because of that, and many more seriously injured. But now that there was no longer any threat of the virus, help came from on the authorities above at last, and the Doctor and Rose should have felt free to be on their way.

Except the collapsed supports and debris from above had blocked them off from the TARDIS. That was maddeningly inconvenient, but not as worrisome as it could have been, really. The TARDIS wasn't lost, just unreachable for the moment. Crews and equipment from above were clearing away the rubble rapidly, looking for survivors from the collapse, collecting the dead for burial, and clearing pathways for others who had been trapped in certain sections. Eventually there would be a path made to the TARDIS, if they were patient.

But Rose was tired. She was exhausted, in fact. Drained. She had not eaten anything except for a banana and a snack-size chocolate bar the Doctor had fished out of his pockets for her. He had made a mental note that had actually bordered more on a vow that he would start keeping a stash of non-perishable food in his bigger-on-the-inside pockets for her from now on. Trail mix was a very good idea. He liked that stuff. The kind with dried banana slices and candy-coated chocolate bits mixed in.

But maybe she would be too tired to eat it just now. He realized with a pang of guilt that she had not even been able to sit down even for a moment in several hours. She was quiet as well, too worn to do a bit of good-natured complaining that often accompanied discomfort.

He moved nearer to her, his thoughts withdrawing from plans of his own to get to the TARDIS. They would not be reaching the ship tonight, maybe not until mid-afternoon the next day by his guess. Instead he tried to think of somewhere he could take Rose to rest, and very quickly reached the conclusion that right now, there was nowhere for them to go.

He couldn't go back to the makeshift laboratory where he had concocted the cure because now it would be full of the recovering ill and the injured. It would be an effort to try to hitch a ride to the upper plates to look for a place to bed down for the night; it wasn't unmanageable under ordinary circumstances, but while those governing the upper cities were sending help to the area below, they still refused to take in refugees. Rose and the Doctor would not be welcome, and the Doctor didn't think his companion had the stamina to duck the authorities and sneak or talk their way into a hotel or a sympathetic person's home somewhere. To be honest, the Doctor rather thought Rose wasn't even up to crossing the broken street right now.

He stood, motionless, next to her, watching her lean against the wall for support, his features creased with worry, and a little bit of tiredness of his own and another big slice of guilt. This was all his fault.

He wanted very much to be in the TARDIS right now. Get something simple and warm and nourishing into Rose, get her cleaned up and into her bed.

Still, not possible right now. He would have to make do. Walking into the alleyway a few steps, he brushed at the place where the sidewalk met the wall with the toe of his trainer, removing most of pebbles and bits from a spot just large enough for him to sit. Then he took off his coat and eased himself down, spreading the long jacket across his knees and over his chest.

"Rose," he called gently, and waited until she opened bleary, red-rimmed eyes that were a little gummed with dried tears and old eyeliner she had no means of removing right now. Another little pang of guilt, but he made himself focus on what he could do to ease her weariness right now. He smiled gently and said, "It's bedtime. Well, long, long past it actually. Come on."

Her forehead creased a little, her mind confused and slowed by the lack of sleep, but she trusted him as always and took the few steps toward him, until she was close enough for him to take her arms and guide her to sit on the coat covering his lap. Seeming like she had fewer bones than usual, she lay limply against his chest with her head dropping onto his shoulder as if she could hold it up herself no longer. He wrapped the coat around her, clasping his hands to hold her in place and to keep the coat closed.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "Best I can do." And it was. But at least in his arms she wasn't sleeping on the rough and broken sidewalk that even his jacket wouldn't have been able to cushion and she was protected against the coming night's chill, and now her body could finally rest and regain some strength in safety and what comfort he could offer of himself.

Still, the guilt was going to linger. If Rose had let it, that is. Tired and sluggish as she was, she had ever been sensitive to his moods, even when she didn't understand them. She lifted her head a little, looked at his face and smiled. Then she lifted her chin and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Her mouth had the scent of chocolate and banana on it still.

"G'night," she said, her head back on his shoulder.

A smile spread across the Doctor's face, at exactly the same time that a lump formed in his throat. He swallowed the lump, but kept the smile.

"Night-night," he whispered back.

Then he relaxed as he listened to her breathing grow deep and even. In the distance, somewhere over the broken buildings, he could still hear the crews and machinery clearing away the rubble, making a path toward the TARDIS and home.

It was comforting.


End file.
